Situational requirements engineering for the development of Content Management System-based web applications

Abstract

Web applications are evolving towards strong content-centred information systems accessible through the web. The development processes and implementation of these applications are unlike the development and implementation of traditional information systems. In this paper, we propose a Web Engineering Method (WEM): a method for developing Content Management System (CMS)-based web applications. Critical to a successful development of CMS-based web applications is adaptation to the dynamic business. We first define CMS-based web applications and identify their specific characteristics. Combining these characteristics with situational factors in projects, we show that by taking parts of proven methods, such as UML-based Web Engineering (UWE) and the Unified Process (UP), a unique method can be assembled for situational development of CMS-based web applications. We successfully validated the method at GX, a web-technology company specialised in developing and implementing CMS-based web applications.